Free Schools

"Free schools", as they are described, have become part of the government plan to remove all schools from local authority control so that they can be run locally. Parents' groups, charities, trusts and voluntary groups can set up and operate schools. Academies are publicly-funded schools which operate outside of local authority control. They have more freedom than other schools in the state sector over issues such as teachers' pay and how the school is governed. So is there a difference between free schools and academies? Essentially none because free schools will now be established as academies. By removing the requirement for groups to consult with the local authority before setting up a free school, parents' groups and other groups will not be hindered by the local council. 2000 primary schools and 600 secondaries – have already been offered "fast-track" access to academy status. Disused shops, vacant office blocks, old hospitals and even homes could be used as classrooms as planning laws are relaxed. Education Secretary Michael Gove said: "We're proposing to change the system to make it easier for buildings which are currently being used as, or classed as, residential or commercial to be converted to school use."

In response to the proposed educational reforms , NUT general secretary Christine Blower said: "...there is the strong possibility under this system that governing bodies could increasingly contract out the running of schools to private companies in return for management fees. Adopting such a business model to our schools will amount to the sweeping dismantling of our education system, turning it over to unaccountable, unelected companies."

Education is an integral part of any social system. In one that is dominated by commodity relationships and values, education both reflects and contributes to those relationships and values. A book called The Education Dilemma, edited by a member of the World Bank, makes the following remarkably frank admission : "It is true that schools have 'inputs' and 'outputs' and that one of their nominal purposes is to take human 'raw material' (i.e. children) and convert it into something more valuable (i.e. employable adults)."

The absolute need to produce for profit requires a trained workforce, why else make school attendance a legal requirement, our children being the only members of our society forced by law into an institution without being convicted in court. Education becomes associated with a punitive regime
For the ruling class the education of workers is a cost that must be borne as economically as possible.When state education was established towards the end of the 19th century rote learning, lots of copying was the rule. This reflected industrial processes for which those children were being prepared. Today the direct influence of capitalism is to be seen in the managerial approach; the setting and measuring of targets, a tightly controlled and prescriptive national curriculum, all inspected by commissars of OFSTED. The problem confronted by capitalism is twofold - what to teach people (within the parameters of training for social roles, inculcation of specific cultural values, and regulating and controlling behaviour) and how to teach them (the practical implementation of these values).

George Ritzer wrote a another book , The McDonaldization of Society. The basic principles of the McDonalds are efficiency, quantified and calculated product, predictability, and the substitution (as far as possible) of non-human for human technology. Ritzer shows how these principles are exemplified in education. Schools are required to be cost-effective; league tables give evidence of which institutions get the best exam results. Exams themselves are increasingly boiled down to multiple-choice questions so the answers can be machine graded. The best-selling textbooks are "customised" and contain easily-digested McNuggets of information. School league tables are meant to indicate how well a school is "performing", but in fact help to instil "market discipline" as schools compete for pupils (and therefore funding: this factor is also strongly felt in the further education sector where cutbacks, bullying management and a mad scramble for pupils is wracking those who work there). The encouraged relationship of parents to schools is that of the marketplace. with parents as consumers, entering into a contract with the school that is itself (if it opts out) a self-run business.

We go to school in order to prepare ourselves for entering that market; to gain skills and knowledge we can sell in order to live. Students are workers in waiting. The education system is a production line, a vast factory for turning out workers tuned to our masters' requirements, vending skills for the jobs market; and like any production line, it must produce to follow demand. If the labour market needs cheap unskilled workers, the education system provides. Academic achievement is not the main goal of the education system, providing for the jobs market is. Low academic achievement is factored in, to supply the masses of jobs that don't need brain work. Only a few workers are needed to really think, thus the university system is set up to produce a small élite, to fill that niche market. Their skills are valuable because they are rare: but, as in any other market, if the number of graduates available becomes too large—as it does as university education spreads—they are over-produced, and then their value drops. Sending more people to university does not guarantee more people with higher wages and does not guarantee more skilled jobs.

Schools teach us, subtly and sometimes not so subtly, that buying and selling, handling money, seeking employment, voting for leaders every few years, thinking in national terms, and so on, are all part of the "real world" in which we live. What is not considered, despite much rhetoric to the contrary, is that each child is an individual, ironic for a system that lauds individualism. Socialists have no difficulty with the concept of from each according to ability, an obvious recognition of difference, to each according to need, a guarantee no one can suffer or prosper due to a result of either heredity or environmental influences. We cannot visualise a socialist society where children are regimented into education, conveyor-belt style.

What can we say about education in socialist society? It is easier to foresee what will no longer take place than what will positively develop. With no employment, schooling will lose its function as preparation for employment. No more McDonaldisation of education. The knowledge and skills needed to run a society which inherits the best from the past and rejects the worst will be circulated and developed , and the ability to think creatively and critically, transmitted from generation to generation. They will be truly free schools.